Part two of my 100 one-sentence-movie reviews!
1909-1934
1935-1959
1935
The most celebrated Fred & Ginger film with incredible dance numbers and songs written by Irving Berling.
1936
A classic screwball comedy, with William Powell as the butler Godfrey in an insane high society family, including a deranged Carole Lombard and a vicious Gail Patrick.
1937
See it for following reasons: The perfectly put together trio of Ronald Colman, David Niven and C. Aubrey Smith, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as the suave villain, Raymond Massey as the purely evil villain, Ronald Colman playing opposite himself, Ronald Colman in a turtleneck, amazing b/w cinematography that plays with lighting and shadows - and of course, the swell swords fight between Colman and Fairbanks Jr.
YouTube link
1938
An absolutely essential adventure movie, complete with Michael Curtiz behind the camera, a beautiful Olivia De Havilland in distress, Errol Flynn in green tights, Basil Rathbone in a form fit villain role and Claude Rains as Prince John.
1939
You will find the most impressing Technicolor experience you ever could achieve when Dorothy opens the door to the land of Oz, and meets munchkins, a stupid scarecrow, a rusty tin man, a frightened lion, a green witch and a lot of flying monkeys.
1940
Laurence Olivier is pure eye candy in this Hitchcock thriller about a naive young woman (Joan Fontaine) who marries the rich widower Mr. de Winter (Olivier), only to notice that the presence of Mr. de Winter's first wife gets more and more evident.
YouTube link
1941
A screwball comedy with William Powell, Myrna Loy, an annoying mother-in-law, misunderstandings, divorce, insane asylums, a drag queen and once again a vicious Gail Patrick.
1942
A surprisingly scary film without people in cat costumes - the scaring technique instead relies upon camera angles, lighting, sound effects and other innocent everyday ingredients (not to mention a cat looking Simone Simon).
1943
Possibly my favorite Hitchcock, with Theresa Wright as the young girl who starts to suspect that her loving visiting uncle (Joseph Cotten) may not be the person she thinks he is.
1944
In a more unusual Hitchcock film a ship gets torpedoed and the survivors get into a lifeboat and has to cooperate in order to survive - a mother with a baby, a German and a Tallulah Bankhead among others.
1945
A lovely David Lean directed British drama about a woman who meets a stranger in a railway station, and starts having indecent thought about cheating on her husband.
1946
Three Marx brothers smoking hookahs at a hotel in postwar Casablanca and a nazi villain played by Sig Ruman couldn't get any better.
1947
In a thriller with innovative camera work, Bogart is convicted of murdering his wife and escapes from prison in order to prove his innocence - but first he needs to undergo plastic surgery and change his appearance.
1948
In a thriller filmed in one long take (almost) two boys kill a friend to prove that the "perfect crime" exists (based on the real Leopold and Loeb case in the 1920's) - but their old teacher (James Stewart) gets suspicious.
1949
On the way to a day-long trip together, friends Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern and Jeanne Crain receive a letter from another female friend - she is running away with one of their husbands, but doesn't tell which one...
1950
James Stewart plays a pleasant, well-mannered man who has an imaginary friend in the form of a six foot tall rabbit called Harvey - something that concerns his family who wants to get into the high society.
1951
Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart manage to find themselves in a little boat in the middle of Africa during WWI, with the mission to attack an enemy war ship.
1952
There is a lot of singing in Hollywood, during the transition from silents to talkies in the late 1920's - and where does one sing best if not in the rain?
1953
A disfigured sculptor (the irreplaceable Vincent Price) opens up a Wax Museum in New York, much admired for its realistic wax dolls - could that have something to do with the fact that bodies have been stolen from the morgue?
1954
As was usual in the samurai-era of Japans history, samurais are hired to protect a poor village from bandits stealing their crop - an absolutely amazing film by Akira Kurosawa.
1955
James Dean in his smashing film debut (and the only film of his that got to have a premiere before he crashed to his death), complete with the essential father complex and the disillusioned youngsters.
1956
Yul Brynner with bare upper body and Charlton Heston as Moses in Cecil B. DeMille's most awesome mastodon film, famous for its revolutionary special effects.
1957
A young man is tried for murder, and the jury may not leave the room until they all agreed whether the defendant is guilty or not - 11 persons vote guilty, one (Henry Fonda) votes not guilty.
1958
Sinbad fights his way among cyclops, giant birds, dragons, evil magicians and a by magic shrunken fiancée, with special effects by the legend Ray Harryhausen.
1959
Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon witness the Valentine's Day Massacre and has to run for their lives with the maffia running after - they dress up as ladies, join a ladies chorus and picks up the charming (but brain dead) Sugar Kane Kowalczyk along the way.
13 comments:
I've seen some of these. I just finished writing down so many of these titles so I can remember to find them at the library and such so I can watch them. Thanks for doing these lists! They're great, and the boyfriend and I always Love watching old flicks together.
Courtney:
Haha, great! I'm glad I inspire, then I've fulfilled my purpose :) Good that you too have a boyfriend to watch films together with - all movies I recommend on this 100 list are good companion movies!
Great choices! I love the poster that you found for Harvey, he looks so sweet there. And I'm glad you picked Brief Encounter, it's one of my all time favorite movies ever :D
Good choices! I was particularly glad to see Top Hat, Harvey, and Singin' In The Rain on this list! I actually used Singin' In The Rain this summer to introduce my cousin to Gene Kelly, and she seemed to really like it!
"Love Crazy" sounds great. I can't resist a vicious Gail Patrick. I will be excited to watch it.
I always felt sorry for Gail Partrick in My Man Godfrey..You know she loves Godfrey too..She would have made a better match for Godfrey in the End.Carols a real psycho!I love her..but marriage?..No NO!..Thems a bunch o great filums miss Lolita!....Chapeau Claque..lol
Yay for "Harvey"!!!
Kate Gabrielle:
James Stewart is really cute in that film, isn't he? :) I need to re-watch Brief Encounter, it was too long since last time!
Amanda Cooper:
Yay for introducing classics to people! Singin' in the Rain is a great start, that's the film that I started with when making a real man out of my boyfriend ;)
Maggie:
Love Crazy is one of the funniest screwball comedies I've seen - watch it soon! You want to see William Powell in drag!
Christopher:
Haha, well, I wouldn't marry her neither. I think Gail Patrick would have made a good trophy wife - beautiful, mysterious and witty. But I don't know if she would be faithful, do you?
Tom:
Yay!!
This is a list of masterpieces.
All of them.
For me Shadow of a Doubt
with Brief Encounter and East of Eden are on the top of the tops for different reasons. I am also glad to see 7 Samurai here and also a Huston's film.
Don Michael Corleone:
I see that we have a very similar taste! Thanks for letting me know! :)
I always love seeing foreign language versions of American movie titles. Often they translate to something entirely different than their originals, it's amusing! ("My Husband is Crazy" for "Love Crazy"? Haha!)
"Dark Passage"- have you read the book? I have it on my wishlist but otherwise don't know much about it.
"House of Wax" is even better in 3-D on the big screen! I got to see it like that one summer.
Elsie:
Haha, yes - the translation in the 1930's and 1940's were often the absolute worst - hilarious.
No, I haven't! If you read it and it's good - let me know!
Oh, I envy you! I have NEVER seen a movie in 3D!
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